


To Catch A Waterlily

by CeliaBlair24



Series: Wilted [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Angst, F/F, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Third Person Limited, Past Relationship(s), Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-01-05 05:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18359339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeliaBlair24/pseuds/CeliaBlair24
Summary: The bubble pops, and yet all is the same as it had been.





	1. Jasmine

_From this close,_

_I can hear your lies._

_One_

_`_

“Surprised to see you here,”

 

The café is damn near empty, barren in a way it hardly claims to be any time otherwise. Sunlight slinks through diaphanous floral-themed curtains, slight in that way only winter mornings could claim. It’s six and outside is freezing, yet she doesn’t seem to mind.

 

“Weiss?”  


There’s this unfocused look in her eyes, as if she were somewhere far-off entirely. It takes her… a long while, actually, to realize who’s standing in front of her.

 

“Oh, Blake”

 

She whispers, lips pulled into a taut smile. There’s large bags under her eyes, and her skin’s paler than it usually is. It reminds Blake of their college days together, almost. Scarily so.

 

Without asking, Blake pulls out a chair and takes a seat.

 

“You look horrible,”

 

Blake points out, brows raised; gesturing to the cooled mug in her hand, black and still quite full.

 

Weiss shrugs, holding the mug out.

 

“’s coffee, Blake, just coffee”

 

Blake frowns, nose crinkled. In the distance, she can hear the faint sounds of birds chirping, the crunch of snow as people trudge through dusted walkways, tooting horns. The city in the midst of waking.

 

Her ears twitch.

 

“I keep forgetting what they look like, you always hid them around _her_ ,”

 

Unlike the many other times they’d talked of this, Weiss hardly sounds bitter, reminiscent perhaps. There’s a small, tired smile on her lips, far less fabricated than it had been earlier. Relieved, almost.

 

Blake leans forward in her seat, palms pressed flat against the clothed surface of the table, eyes narrowed to slits—scrutinizing. Weiss doesn’t flinch, doesn’t roll her eyes like she usually would. Instead she looks calm, serene in a way. As if she were fine with this. _Happy_ with this.

“He treats you well?”

 

Weiss asks, later along the line. Her coffee’s still there, still as full as it was when first Blake had seen it, and she still looks so, so tired. But there’s an ease to her, an almost-happy smile that has Blake’s heart soaring. Of all her old friends, Weiss’d always been so protective of Yang.

 

Perhaps this was a turning point.

 

“Yeah, yeah he does”

 

 


	2. Forget-Me-Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They don’t look at each other anymore.

_Before us lays a chasm,_

_Deeper than either of us know._

_Two_

_~_

 

Of course, all love dies.

 

 Her parents love, never having been strong to begin with, had fizzled into nothing the first year of their marriage, and her sisters’ love, being more obligation than anything, had disappeared much the same. She knew for a fact that Ruby’s Dads first marriage was strong, happy and all that—something Weiss had never had— but it’d happened to him too; Raven had still walked away.

 

All love dies.

 

And yet, this feels different.

 

There’s a wide, gaping chasm between them, and they titter over it, staring at each other as if in stalemate. There’s steel in Yang’s eyes, the palms of her hands paper-white and on the verge of bleeding.

 

All love dies, yes, but Yang was one of those few people who cherished— really cherished love for what it was. Passionate, but fleeting. Beautiful all the same.

 

Weiss’d thought it’d last.

 

“Yang,”

 

Blake starts, reaching out to her, fingers curled, shaking. Like her shoulders, the tilt of her lips. She looked so devastated.

 

Yang ignores her, turns away.

 

Weiss had never seen Yang do that before.

 

_All love dies._

 

There’s heartache there, somewhere in the small piece of her heart yet to be swallowed and locked away for later. But it’s taken over, lidded and sealed by a burning anger so pure it could almost be called hatred.

 

There’s that man again, the one from before, walking from table to table and playing around with the customers like he hadn’t just ruined something beautiful. Smiling, laughing, and she was seething, Weiss, tucked into the furthest corner-booth of the café possible, watching as Yang titters and titters and pretends like it doesn’t hurt her at all, as usual.

 

There’s something there, in the clear of her eyes. Not so violet. Not so bright.

 

Weiss turns away from it, lowers the top of her round tennis-cap to cover her eyes so Yang sees nothing of her. It’s futile, she knows, the hairs on the backs of her hands prickling; standing on edge.

 

She pretends anyways.

 

“May I take your order?”

 

There’s a smile, sunny-bright and genuine. Disgusting.

 

“No, no, I think I’ll be taking my leave,”

 

There must’ve been something on her face, Blake’s stoic, not emotionless. Whatever it was, Weiss doesn’t see it. She’s out the door before she gets a chance to, walking, running, calling out to her.

 

“Yang???”

 

By the time she’s made it to the walkway, the path is bustling and people press into her from all sides.

 

Yang is gone.

 


	3. Roses 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I saw you before, once.

_Gold around her wrist,_

_Delicate and binding._

_Three_

_`_

She sees there, nestled in a bosom of green, silk. Red silk pooling around the thinness of ankles, hidden, the stark whiteness of a woman bent over a field.

 

“Hello?”

 

The trees bristle, shift around with every brush of the wind. Blossoms flutter around her, pink with spring and youth, and it does look lovely, as if she were some angel wrought from fairy tale threads and sewn into this new reality.

 

“H-Hey!”

 

Weiss calls again, reaching, fingers stretching, _wanting_.

 

The woman turns, eyes wide and so, so familiar.

 

But there’s only so much of youth to grasp, and too-soon the red melts into the soil beneath the wilting blossoms. Blackening muck, pooling into oil, then gas, then nothing.

 

The ground does not give way.

 

In her place, all is desolate.


	4. Tulips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some lies are much graver than others.

_A whisper of words_

_The warmth of your caress_

_The betrayal of lips_

_Your spilt secrets._

_Four_

_`_

 

“You’ve been quiet,”

 

The days run long, impregnable in their charge through the current dead-weight of Weiss’ life. It was like being on the run, if there was such a thing for emotions. Constantly avoiding, seeking shelters in different places, with different people in an effort to stave off the inevitable.

 

“I see you’ve been drinking a lot too…”

 

Now she’s here, cornered into a wall even her father’s money wouldn’t get her through.

 

A sigh, long and tired.

 

“It’s eight in the morning Weiss, what the hell are you doing here,”

 

Violet eyes, a brittle smile. She’d seen this look before.

 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,”

 

They say words hold power over a person, more so than actions, violence or even money. Like the strings on a puppet, the pride of a person just swung every way you wanted. That is, if you knew what to say, when to say it.

 

“…What did you do?”

 

And Yang had always been so impressionable.

 

“Something awfully stupid.”

 

Little rain droplets on the windowpane, autumn comes in a flurry of yellowed leaves and the sadness of departure. And Weiss sits there, hard liquor on the rocks, stress-bitten nails tapping to the rhythm of an old melody. Yang had always been supportive of her, always. It was why she’d stuck by her so long. Through thick and thin— rough breakups, bad hookups, street fights; the whole shebang.

 

Yet being here now, watching her expression turn from worried and concerned to… to other, she braced herself.

 

This could not end well.

 

“Oh, Weiss…”


	5. Waterlily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A crash.

 

_Reality is like a jigsaw puzzle, pieces scattered and dumped into some box for fixing. The actuality of the fact, the reason it frightens even the best of us, is because more often than not, no one cares enough to sort it all out._

_We all just… let it be._

 

`

_The end comes swiftly._

_Five_

_`_

It’s cold here, yet not.

 

As if winter’d warmed over, half-formed icicles melt over scorching metal and bleeding shards of glass. The roads are barren and scorched black, curving into themselves in crumbling heaps of overheated cement as a fire blazes on from the wreck.

 

People gather around, screaming and crying out and the anguish is so, _so_ palpable.

 

_Breathe._

 

It’s hard to think here. Sirens blare off the walls of the encroaching streetways, police, firefighters and an ambulance working their way through the crowd gathering around the car burning. Disregarding the damp of the heated air. Disregarding the wet of gas and oil and blood. Disregarding the stench of burning fuel and burning bodies and— _and_ ….

 

“Miss?”

 

 _Broken_ , something broken within her. Through the haze of heartache and anger and cold regret, the familiarity of pain pinched at her frozen limbs in an effort to work her into waking.

 

“Tell me your name,”

 

A gasp of air, the words die on her tongue before she could speak them.

 

And she can hear it even now, as if it were still happening. Metal bending, overheating. Glass shattering. The crunch of bones and blood dripping.

 

A warble of words, and the world blurs at its edges. Through the haze she could see it almost, the fire receding, twisted metal and broken glass slipping away.

 

_Smaller._

 

Getting _smaller_.

 

“What—What are you doing?”

The stench, the horrible stench stays. Clings to her clothes, her skin. _Her_.

 

 _Burning_.

 

Burning gas, burning _bodies_.

 

“It’s okay, you’re safe now,”

 

The world comes to in mottled black and blue. Shapes move along the blurred edges of her periphery, shifting with too-bright light and hounding shadows, moving and growing and nearing her.

 

The sound of the sirens remains steady above her, whispering of warmth and comfort, safety she cannot feel.

 

“It’s gonna be okay now, Weiss. It’s gonna be okay.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note for clarification, if you've read the tags you know that this is non-linear in format, so the chapter structure has nothing to do with when and why something took place. Mostly, the ficlets (as I like to call em) are here just as add on's or even previews of what you can expect in the main story, which I'm hoping to have the first chapter for published by next week. It's very unconventional, and I understand if it's hard to get, but being as it is snip-offs of the larger story (which I couldn't fit into the overall structure, because the story in itself, for all its brevity IS admittedly convoluted at best) don't get to hardpressed about it. I'm sure, if you would still be interested in reading the main storyline, a lot of what you see here will make sense. So uhmmmm wait on it! (And I do promise that the uhm, timeline for the main storyline will be more coherent than this. Ehehe ;))


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